Asking yourself powerful questions

- As an entrepreneur you can cultivatethe habit of asking yourself powerful questions.In fact, I see that as one of the differencesbetween entrepreneurs and most everyone elseis the fact that entrepreneursare constantly asking questions.Sometimes even strange questionsbut these questions lead themto see the world in waysthat others do not.So, my question for you is:Are you asking these kinds of questions?For example, I once had a great teacherin entrepreneurship and he brought ina package of reading glassesthat he had purchased at the dollar store.

He asked us, as students, the question:How can they make a profitselling five reading glasses for one dollar?That caused us to challenge our assumptionsabout supply, any demand, and production.These are the kinds of questionsyou want to ask yourself.First, you can ask yourself thought questionsjust like that.How do these things works?Consider questions about the world around you.Perhaps you're eating at a restaurantand you say, "What if I was running this restaurant?"What would I do different?"These kinds of theoretical questionsare actually very powerful.

A second question to ask yourself is:How does this apply to me?Often I see people close themselves offto a speaker or to a videobecause they say, "Well, that doesn't apply to me."I'm in a different business."Instead, ask yourself the question:How does this apply to me?It doesn't seem like it fitsbut there's gotta be something hereI can learn.You can always learnand sometimes the best lessons I've ever learnedhave come other industries completelyunrelated to what I do.

The next question to ask yourself is:What's one thing I will doas a result of what I just heard?I've been asking this question throughout this course.The idea is, wow, there are lots of different thingsyou could do to improve your businessjust pick one and do that.Another question is:Am I making enough money for the time that I spend working?Sometimes entrepreneurs are so caught up inworking day in and day outthat they don't realize thatthe hours that they're spendingare resulting them pretty much having a minimum wage job.

Asking the question:Am I making enough money for the time I spend working?Will cause you to think about ways to improvethe efficiency in your small business.Question five is:What's one thing I can doto improve this business or this product?Fill in the blank.What's one thing I can do to improve it?This will give you insightinto something that needs to change.There's always something that canget better in your business.The sixth question I credit to my friend, Noah St. John.

He wrote in his book, The Secret Code of Success,about something called afformations.Now, an affirmation is when you look in the mirrorand say, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough,"dog gone it, people like me."Right? Well, an afformation is where you ask a question,a positive why question.Why am I good enough?Why am I going to succeed?The reason why you ask why questionsis because now your brain has to close the loop.It actually gets your mindset on a positive path,faster than telling yourself positive things.

The seventh question is called the pre-mortem question.Now, if you've watched a crime show on TVyou know what a post-mortem is, right?How did this person die?Well, a pre-mortem imagines that something dies.For instance, you're going to start a new product,a new marketing initiative,and you imagine that it died.How did this die?By freeing yourself to imagine that it did failyou'll start to look at flaws in the planand it will help you be more creativeto prevent those things from ever happening.

And then, lastly, just start to askother people more questions.You come in contact with lots of peoplein a variety of industries.Get involved with the mindsetthat you have something to learn from them.You can start by asking me questions on my blogat davecrenshaw.com.Ask a question on any blog postand I'll be glad to respond to it for you.The idea is that you want to cultivate the skill.The more you practice these questions,the more you use it,the more your mind becomes usedto challenging your assumptionsand questioning the world around you.

The more questions you ask as an entrepreneurthe higher the odds are that you're goingto succeed in small business.

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Updated

3/31/2015

Released

4/15/2014

Are you thinking about starting a small business, freelancing, or turning a hobby into a full-time job? Or perhaps you're already running your own business and need some inspiration to take it to the next level. Join small business coach Dave Crenshaw for two short lessons that reveal the secrets of running a successful small business. This series covers topics such as getting started, writing a business plan, determining your most valuable product or service, hiring people, managing processes, documenting systems, bootstrapping, seeking funding, accounting, controlling costs and profit margins, marketing, creating culture, and more.